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Comment by TacticalCoder | Hacker News Reader

> For a doctor that was nearing the age of retirement or had very poor keyboard proficiency...

I went to a doctor recently who was typing very fast. I did kid with her that she could type nearly as fast as I did and yet she was also using one of this automated note taking thinggamagic (holding some kind of microphone in her hand).

She'd type manually for stuff like email/subject, click click one sentence here, click, one word there: for that kind of stuff it's too slow to dictate one word, then click, etc.

But in that big empty text field? She'd dictate.

As a bonus as her patient I got to hear her report (or "my" report if you want) in real-time.

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I once had to go to a walk-in clinic to deal with a minor emergency. The doctor who attended me was literally typing with his pointer fingers.

Were they slow? There's actually plenty of people who can do that at a reasonable or even fast pace. Of course lots of people type reasonably quickly with two thumbs too (or in the case of this comment, a left thumb and right pointer finger).

It’s always slower than typing properly.

Sure, in the hypothetical where the person also decided to learn to type properly. If someone is plenty fast for their needs then it doesn't really matter, though.

I don't type properly (use about half my fingers) but I find 80wpm is usually fast enough.

Using half your fingers is different from using two.

I can type with two fingers faster than I can type with full hands. I’m still trying to get my touch typing up to the speed of my two fingers.

I spent two years typing with just my forefingers, and can dk 80wpm with 99+ accuracy and I don’t look at the keyboard.

With two hands I’m still at 60-65 roughly and with worse accuracy but I’m sure it will come with time.

Doesn't sound real. I've typed correctly my whole life and have a lower WPM than that. You'd need to move your fingers at superhuman speeds to achieve that with just two wingers.

I spent literally thirty years typing with two forefingers, and note, I didn’t need to look at the keyboard. Also worked as a software engineer that whole time. So I had a lot of practice.

It’s why it’s taken me so long to try and adapt to touch typing. Too much muscle memory to rewire.

Fun fact. An old coworker typed like that. He's a software engineer.

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